


Fleeting Hope

by LittleFox8



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom - Susan Kay, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Erik gets some loving, F/M, originally posted to fanfiction I'm not stealing it I've just moved!, read then judge please
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 20:37:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleFox8/pseuds/LittleFox8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A random girl passes out on the footsteps of the house by the lake. Erik takes her in after she glimpses his face. </p>
<p>*note: I've edited the writing a bit since the original style embarrasses me now. Also I changed the name of the character from my name and other various details because of how much I've changed since I first wrote this. Then I was the model of a good little Catholic girl, now I'm a polyamorous bisexual pagan! Still the same story just not REALLY me anymore!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Erik heard a faint thump. He wondered if some drunken builder had stumbled upon his newly constructed home. As the opera house was nearly finished, he had thought this would be an unlikely occurrence and had not yet installed security measures. However, Erik had other ways to deal with intruders. Retrieving his Punjab, he slunk off to greet his visitor.

Upon opening his door, he found a woman lying unconscious on his doorstep. Erik looked the stranger over. He supposed the girl was pretty, but Erik felt the she was not at all in proper attire. She wore a blue cotton shirt with a silver coat of arms embroidered to the chest, a tan skirt that failed to even reach her knees, pink stockings, and silver ballet flats with clothe flowers sewn to the toes. A gold crucifix hung around her neck, and she wore a pair of glasses that now set askew.

The girl stirred a little sleepily opening her eyes. After gazing for a moment at Erik’s unmasked face, she promptly lost consciousness once more. Erik gathered up the girl and took her inside. However skewed Erik’s morals were, they did, in fact, object to the murder of young ladies.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mysterious young lady breaks the ice in the quirkiest method possible.

I woke up on a couch in a strange room. The first stupid, rather Dorothy-esque, thought to come to my mind was, “I’m not in geometry anymore.”

Unfazed, I promptly got up and began to fool with various objects in the room. I then started to do what I always do: I sang. I had soon launched into a solo of “Seasons of Love” from RENT. I sing everywhere, including the hallways at school; I saw no reason not to do it in this strange place.

I whipped around at the sound of a man clapping softly. Drenched in black, he hid his face behind an ebony mask.

“Bon jour, mademoiselle.” His voice positively took my breath away. Completely flustered by his presence, the tiny amount of French that I was familiar with fled my mind.

“Um… Hello.” I said stupidly, giving the stranger a little wave.

“Oh, I see you speak English.”

I gave nod in reply.

“Well, I must say you have a lovely voice, mademoiselle.” I blushed at his compliment. Blushing: another thing I do an awful lot of.  

“I’m not all that good.” I mumbled in weak protest. I am highly aware of every tiny flaw in my voice.

“Believe me, mademoiselle, I know talent when I hear it.” (At this point, my face resembled a tomato.) “May I ask your name mademoiselle?”

“My name is Rachel,” I said quietly.

The man took my hand. He bowed saying: “You may call me Erik.”

Comprehension hit me like a ton of bricks. Erik! I was in the presence of the Phantom of the Opera. Images of Punjabs and torture chambers started to dance around in my head.

“I’m very sorry to intrude, monsieur. I’ll just leave.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that mademoiselle. You have seen my face, if you recall.” I did, and I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t pleasant.

“Of course, forgive me. My mind is a little muddled.” I could tell he was caught of guard by my cooperation. Erik started to walk towards me. Hastily raising my hand to my temple, I jumped back. Erik can be very intimidating, but that didn’t stop me from being embarrassed. I heard Erik give a dark chuckle.

“Do I frighten you, Rachel?”

“Yeah, a little,” I mumbled. I’d read enough phics where the phangirl was killed by the very man she worshiped to feel that my fear was justified.

“I can hardly blame you. Not after…” Erik trailed of touching his mask. At that point I forgot everything that had made me keep my distance. I rushed forward and put my hand on his shoulder. He whipped around and stared at me. I think we were both shocked. “I’m not frightened of you because of your face Erik,” I said quietly. I meant it too. I’m not really a morbid person per se, but I almost found Erik attractive in an extremely unorthodox kind of way.  

“You are lying to Erik to trick him into letting you go,” he accused, “How could Erik’s form not make your very skin crawl?”

I rushed forward and gave Erik a quick hug. “Just call me a freak.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Music is the thing that binds us all!  
> I promise these get longer and less awkward!

My unexpected affection had glued Erik to his spot. I continued to investigate the home of the Opera Ghost, as he stared at me dumbly.

“So… How long have you been staying here Erik?” I asked, as I inspected what I recognized to be an ostrich egg. I wanted to get an idea of how old he was.

“Not long. A month perhaps?” Erik said. He seemed to find my fascination with his various trinkets amusing.

I thought about that for a moment, as I fingered a trilobite fossil. That placed Erik at around twenty I figured, maybe older maybe younger. I wondered if he had started to compose “Don Juan” yet. I had to make sure I did not appear to know things about Erik that he had not told me though, that would lead to awkward questions.

“May I inquire why you have taken up residence beneath the opera house?"

“Erik is one of the architects,” he said dismissively.

“Do you enjoy music?” I asked. “Is the pope Catholic?!?!?” I added silently.

“Erik is extremely fond of music.” His voice was a little more enthusiastic this time. I was hoping against hope that I might get a chance to hear Erik sing.

“Erik would imagine you like music too, as you seemed to find it perfectly normal to sing upon awakening in a strange man’s house,” he added with a wry chuckle.

Squaring my shoulders I said in my defense, “In my opinion, there is never a wrong time to sing.”

“Then we should get along quite well, Erik thinks.” He turned and walked towards a door, gesturing for me to follow. I trailed cautiously behind him. Erik opened the door and I peered in. I was relieved to see it was the drawing room. I was still worried about having a torture-chamber related death.

“Do you know any operas, Rachel?” he asked as he sat down at the piano. I shook my head. “Well, you will learn.”

I think it was one of the best days of my entire life.

 

By the time Erik was satisfied with the amount of time we had spent practicing, I was ready to fall over. Not to mention ready to eat my own arm.

“Would you like something to eat?” Erik asked. I had been hoping he had not heard my stomach growling.

“Yeah,” I mumbled.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An awkward dinner in a short chapter

Erik sat a plate in front of me, before settling into the chair opposite mine, reclining lazily. He watched me, obviously waiting for me to eat.

“Aren’t you having something?” I asked.

“I am not hungry,” he said. I knew he was more worried about his mask. Personally I was more worried about his health.

“Here, take some of mine,” I said offering my plate.

“I will eat later,” he protested. We looked at each other for a long time, each knowing what the other was doing and calculating their retaliation.

“I won’t eat until you do,” I said simply, pushing my plate away from me. Erik stared at me for a long time, waiting for me to give in to the heap of food in front of me. I didn’t.

At last he stood up. He exited the room and came back carrying a loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese. Erik plopped down in his chair and set down his food. “Fine, you shall have it your way, Rachel” Erik growled as he ripped off his mask.

As I have said before, Erik is quite the sight to behold. However, I had not grasped the complete extent of his deformity in my dazed stupor. He stared at me, waiting for me to scream or pass out, all Erik got from me was a hard swallow as I quickly mastered myself. I nodded toward his food, my look expectant. Erik reached for the loaf of bread, never taking his eyes off me. It was as if he expected me to make a mad dash for the door the moment he took his eyes off me.

Once Erik began to eat, I gave an approving nod then turned to my own food.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little awkward fluff! Always a good thing!

When I woke up the next morning, I found a dress draped across the chair. In a box on the table, I found all the trappings of 19th century attire. My acceptance of Erik’s face had clearly caught his attention.

I felt pretty good about how things were going, but then… I got to the corset. Corsets are kind of a two-person deal. Imagine that you took your sneaker and removed the shoelace. Then you taped that shoe to your back and tried to restring it on your own. You see my point. It’s not like I didn’t try to do it on my own. I did. For, like, half an hour, but eventually I gave in.

“Hey, Erik?” I called with that pitiful kind of distress that is more a whine than anything else.

I swear, that man practically materialized next to me. “Yes?” Erik said in my ear.

“Could you help me with this stupid corset? I can’t seem to figure it out.” At that point, Erik realized I was in the time period’s equivalent of lingerie. Which is an awful lot like pajamas. They’re tacky, but not what you would call indecent. Well, not anymore. Poor Erik, I could almost hear him blushing.

Erik made quick work of my corset. He then rushed from the room, fleeing the awkwardness. I then finished dressing. I went to my mirror in the bathroom. I fixed my hair and replaced my glasses. I have to admit, that gown made me feel like a princess.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel encounters Erik being rather sweet, and slightly creepy.

When I came in Erik was dressed like he planned on going out. He had left a plate of food for me to find whenever I would wake up. I sat down at the table about to eat.

“Erik would like you to know, Rachel, that he has already eaten. There will be no need for the previous night’s drama.” Wow, he was snarky, but I can be pretty sarcastic at times too.

“Do you have plans for the day?” I asked between bites. Erik was as good chef as he was a musician, a pleasant surprise considering he would be greatly threatened by a breeze.

“Yes,” he replied shortly. I waited for him to elaborate.

“Such as?” I encouraged. I did not plan on staying trapped in the 5th cellar, while Erik got to run around up top.

“Erik needs to oversee the Garnier construction,” he said. He had his nose plastered to a piece of parchment on which he was making large furious strokes. Well, the nose of his mask, anyway. I wondered if he was making blueprints. I came up and peered over his shoulder to see what distracted him so. Imagine my surprise when I saw that Erik was drawing me. My expression was slightly shocked, my eyes seemed to have fear and alarm in them, but over all the signs of horror there was a soft compassion. Erik was drawing my face when he took off his mask.

“That is really good.” I said awestruck. Startled, Erik started to shift the papers around in order to remove the incriminating drawing. As he did so, I saw at least twenty other sketches of myself. It absolutely blew my mind.

“I-I’m sorry,” Erik muttered. He sounded like a child caught stealing sweets, “Your face is just so expressive.”

I dragged my chair next to him and sat down. “May I see them?” I asked. I love art. I always have, but I could never draw things how I saw them in my mind. As I looked at the sketches, I saw that they were all of my various expressions. I saw what Erik meant. My face was very expressive. I could tell which moment was depicted just by the way I looked.

“I can’t believe you drew all these from memory,” I breathed. “Erik,” I started, hoping my praise would help my cause, “I was wondering if I could go with you.”

“No,” he replied.

“Why not?” I demanded.

“It would be far too hard for Erik to keep an eye on you,” he said simply. Erik was still expecting an escape attempt.

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“Entertain yourself."


End file.
